“The soul of this book is what most of us look for in a story—direct talk, honesty, good descriptions, explanations, and an appealing connection to the reader. Every ex-nun story describes overlapping events, but this author’s deeper level of sharing everything adds to the reader’s understanding and experiential reactions–sometimes surprisingly, sometimes with just enough extra depth to make one say, “Oh, that’s why she was concerned–that angle of background wouldn’t have occurred to me.
If you’re looking for a titillating book about young women, you may be confusing it with last night’s television programs. This story begins with why the author went to the convent. 20th century vocations were complicated. Priest, nuns, and others in authority sometimes urged parents to give up their child (it used to be “one from each family for the Church”). Teenage girls who looked for ways to save the world and get to “be somebody” at the same time, had no clue what lay ahead of them in the ubiquitous silence, hours of prayer and physical work, constant permissions and planned humiliations, and lack of autonomous power. They were shocked at how few days a year they would be allowed to speak to their nun teachers/friends. Add the discovery of one’s Lesbianism, and the Candidate was out in the middle of the sea without a guidelines boat. At least until Vatican II.
You may be surprised at turns in this true account, or not. Regardless, you will be touched by the author’s narrative. Once Upon A Convent is a great story and well worth reading.”